Path of Dreams
Kendra and Seth retreated through the doorway into the tunnel to give Dromadus plenty of space. From the cavern came all the tumult of an earthquake, accompanied by a gritty dust plume. Seth hurriedly closed the door before the dust became unbearable. The tremendous rumble continued as if the entire cavern were caving in. The ground vibrated beneath their feet.
Kendra watched her brother. He looked so young and uncertain, his eyes wide, his hair dusty, the flashlight crammed against one ear, his hand covering the other, trying to mute the thunder of colliding rocks.
How had they ended up here? What if this got them killed? Couldn't somebody else handle this crisis?
It finally got quiet.
"All right," Dromadus invited. "You may return, young mortals."
With Seth's hand in hers, Kendra pushed through the door. Globes of light now illuminated the cavern. Dust hung in the air. A deep depression in the floor led down to a square hole with a staircase going deeper. It was impressive to think that Dromadus had filled much of that void. The rocky rubble had mostly been shoved to one side of the room, sloping high against the cavern wall.
Dromadus loomed on the other side.
The way he was curled up, the ancient dragon almost looked like a great heap of stone himself, although the rock patterns of his stony scales were too regular, and the head at the top disrupted the illusion. Dromadus was immense—at least twice the size of Celebrant, and so bulky. Each claw looked big enough to crush a truck.
"You're huge!" Seth exclaimed in awe.
"Our kind tend to grow as we age," Dromadus said. "You mortals shrivel up. Very demeaning."
"Can I walk the Path of Dreams alone?" Kendra asked.
"Excuse me?" Dromadus asked.
"Why risk both our lives?" Kendra asked.
"No way!" Seth shouted. "If one can go, it's me. You have like zero practice surviving."
"I've survived a lot," Kendra said.
"I appreciate the strategizing," Dromadus said. "But I take it you must be in contact with one another to function as dragon tamers?"
"He's good," Seth muttered.
"Then you will need to stay together to walk the Path of Dreams," Dromadus said. "And you're welcome. That advice give you a chance."
"Thank you," Kendra said. "Is there anything else we should know?"
"Alas, I do not know the mechanics of the path," Dromadus said. "Archadius kept the specifics hidden, as wizards do. The unworthy will not survive. Death is likely. Off you go."
Hand in hand, Kendra and Seth climbed down into the depression until they reached the opening where the stairs began. Globes lit the way to the bottom, perhaps a hundred steps away, one long flight.
"The Path of Dreams doesn't sound too bad," Calvin said. "I can sometimes fly in my dreams. And breathe underwater."
"We explored a place called the Dreamstone in Australia," Seth said. "It was pretty terrible. Not happy dreams."
"We can do this," Kendra said. "I want to see Mom and Dad again. I want to see Grandma and Grandpa. They're depending on us. We have to do this."
They walked down the stairs. At the bottom, a short hall led to an archway. Engraved runes embellished the walls of the hallway.
"Seth, can you read any of that?" Kendra asked.
"No. Can you?"
"None of it," Kendra said.
"Don't ask the nipsie," Calvin piped up. "He's probably illiterate."
"Can you read it, Calvin?" Seth asked.
"No," he replied.
Kendra paused at the archway. "We need to keep hold of each other," she reminded her brother.
"I've held on so far," Seth said.
"Just don't let go," Kendra said. "I don't want to die frozen by fear."
"Stop thinking so much," Seth said, towing her through the archway.
The smallish room was mostly empty. Dimmer globes softly illuminated polished walls of copper embossed with runes and images of fanciful animals. Against one wall stood a long, narrow table with three corked bottles on top.
"No other doors," Seth said.
"What's with the bottles?" Kendra wondered.
They crossed to the table. All three bottles were made of smoky blue glass and looked old. None had labels.
"Should we drink one?" Seth guessed.
"That seems trusting," Kendra said. "What if they're poison?"
"Maybe one is poison," Seth said. "Or two of them. And the other lets us go forward."
"At least one of us should make it," Calvin said.
Seth removed Calvin from his pocket. The nipsie looked up at Seth curiously.
"Maybe you should wait outside," Seth said. "No need for you to risk your life too."
"Wait, are you joking?" Calvin asked. "The main reason lords call their vassals is to go to battle. This is why I'm here! To stand by you when things get bleak. I'm not going to help break any curses if I hide at the first sign of trouble. I'm the Tiny Hero, right? Not the Tiny Bystander." He pointed at the bottles. "Let me drink first. The one on the left. I have a good feeling about that one. The middle one is an obvious pick, so we should stay away. The right? Most people are right-handed. Wizards would expect folks to reach for the one on the right."
"I'm not sure we should plan on drinking them," Kendra said. "At least not at first. Maybe we could open all three and smell them."
>
"I think she's onto something!" Calvin exclaimed. "We test if some smell sweeter than others. Because the sweet one is probably a trap. Especially if it's the middle one."
"I'll open the left one first," Seth said, putting Calvin back in his pocket, then picking up the bottle. "Kendra, hold my shoulder instead of my hand so I can give it a good pull." Kendra slid her hand from his grasp and up his arm to the back of his neck, maintaining contact the whole way. Seth grabbed the cork and pulled. Then he changed his grip and pulled again. "It's stuck."
"Let me try," Kendra said.
"It doesn't need cooties," Seth protested.
"You're going to get punched," Kendra threatened, giving his neck a squeeze.
"Settle down," Seth said. He handed her the bottle. "I'm pretty sure I loosened it. Good luck."
Seth kept a hand on Kendra's shoulder as she tried to unstop the bottle. There was no give. It was tricky to get a good grip. The cork felt cemented in place.
With his free hand, Seth rummaged in his satchel and came out with a pocketknife, then used his teeth to unfold a corkscrew. "I've never used this."
"You have a corkscrew?" Kendra asked, handing over the bottle and returning her hand to the back of his neck.
"It took me a second to think of it," Seth said. "I wasn't sure the knife had one." He twisted the corkscrew into the cork, then started to pull. His arm trembled.
"Let me try," Kendra said.
"It's coming," Seth said through gritted teeth. A moment later the cork popped off and greenish smoke began to geyser from the bottle's mouth at an alarming rate. After momentarily fumbling with the bottle, Seth aimed the mouth so the smoke gushed away from them.
"Put it down!" Kendra shrieked, letting go of Seth. "Hold your breath!" He hurriedly replaced the bottle on the table. Kendra grabbed his hand and yanked him back toward the archway. Green smoke continued to fountain upward, spreading across the ceiling in flowing ripples.
Kendra and Seth ran out of the archway and turned to watch. Soon the smoke clouding the air made it impossible to see the bottle, but they could still hear it hissing out. The smoke stopped at the archway, as if encountering an unseen barrier. Before long the archway held back a swirling wall of green fog from top to bottom. Kendra could see no more than a couple of inches into the room.
"Now what?" she asked.
"When the gas first started, I thought it might be a message," Seth said. "Patton once left one that way."
"Looks more like a trap," Kendra said.
"Maybe it will clear out," Seth said. "Let's give it some time."
They waited.
"I don't hear the bottle hissing anymore," Seth observed.
"The smoke looks just as thick," Kendra said.
"Maybe we should hold our breath and try to get the other two bottles," Seth suggested.
"It won't be easy," Kendra said. "We won't be able to see in there."
"Usually smoke is thinner near the ground," Calvin said, his little head poking out of Seth's pocket. "But this looks thick all the way down."
"What if we open another bottle and it's more smoke?" Kendra asked.
"We retreat up the stairs," Seth said.
"Let me test it out," Calvin offered. "I don't trust those fumes. Let me hold my breath and run in there a little ways, then come back out."
"No, I'll do it," Seth said. "I didn't see any dragons in there. When Kendra let go of me I didn't freeze up. I'll make a run for the bottles alone."
"Not alone," Kendra said. "If you're going, I'm going too."
"How does that make sense?" Seth asked. "Why risk both of us?"
"Because Dromadus warned that we'd die if we didn't stay together," Kendra reminded him. "What if you run in there alone and then we can't find each other?"
"Hey!" Seth shouted, pointing.
Kendra followed his finger to where Calvin was dashing across the floor toward the archway. "How'd he get down?" Kendra asked.
Seth let go of Kendra and ran after the nipsie, but Calvin had too much of a head start and raced into the green haze before Seth arrived. Kneeling at the archway, Seth reached blindly into the smoke, feeling around, but soon withdrew his arm.
"He's gone," Seth said. "He's sneaky and fast! He must have climbed down my leg from my pocket."
"Hopefully he'll be right back," Kendra said.
"He better be," Seth said. "He just disobeyed an order from his leader."
Kendra rolled her eyes. "You'd never dream of disobeying an order. Especially when you think you're right."
"Calvin!" Seth called. "That's long enough! Can you hear me? Come back!"
They stared at the green smoke and listened to the silence.
"Oh, no," Kendra said.
"Calvin?" Seth tried again. "Can you hear me? Are you lost? Follow my voice! Answer if you can."
They waited.
"He's not coming back," Kendra said. "He said he was just going in a few steps and right back out."
"And what have we learned?" Seth complained. "Nothing. Did he accidentally take a breath? Is he dead?"
"All we know is the smoke is dangerous," Kendra said.
Seth stared at the archway, hands on his hips. "We have to try for another bottle. What else can we do?"
"I guess we could leave," Kendra said.
"Can we really?" Seth asked. "Can we leave behind the scepter? Leave behind Calvin? Just go back to Blackwell Keep with nothing? What if Celebrant knows we're here? What if he figures out what we're after? What if he sends somebody to get the scepter tomorrow? Or tonight? What if someone is on their way right now? I wonder if anyone has lost a preserve just two days after becoming caretaker?"
"Those are good points," Kendra said. "But if Celebrant knows we're here, what if we get the scepter and he steals it from us on the way back?"
"We can worry about that once we have the scepter," Seth said. "We'll talk to Henrick and be as sneaky as we can. But first we need to get it. We can't lead Celebrant to the hidden scepter and then leave it behind."
"Maybe he didn't have us followed," Kendra said. "We never saw any dragons after Terrabelle. Maybe we're about to die from a poison cloud for no reason."
"We hold our breath," Seth said, taking Kendra's hand. "In and out. Run to the table, we each grab a bottle, and we run out. No breathing."
"I guess," Kendra said uncertainly. "Seth, are you sure?"
"I'm not sure we'll make it," Seth said. "But I'm sure we have to try."
Kendra sighed in resignation. "Okay. I'm in. Are you ready?"
"Breathe slowly, then take a deep breath and hold it," Seth advised. "Three." He breathed in and out. "Two." Kendra breathed in and out with him. "One." They breathed in. Seth gave a nod.
Holding his hand tightly, Kendra let him lead her into the smoky room. The dense fumes irritated her eyes, so she closed them. All she saw with them open was green.
Kendra had not traveled many steps before she began to feel light-headed. She stumbled and barely caught herself. She felt Seth stumble as well. The floor seemed to tilt. She became dizzy. This wasn't going to work. She tugged Seth back toward the door. He yanked her in a different direction, almost making her fall.
Still clutching Seth's hand, Kendra remained still. She had lost her orientation. Maybe they could find a wall and work their way back to the door. How long could she keep holding her breath? It was already becoming a struggle.
The floor seemed to swing out from under her. Kendra felt like she was floating. It was peaceful. She opened her eyes. The green smoke no longer irritated them. She realized she was breathing. The smoke didn't bother her lungs. It smelled kind of good. Once again the soles of her feet pressed against a floor.
And then the smoke dissolved. It didn't blow away. It just rapidly dissipated to nothing.
She stood in a long room paneled with dark wood and full of coffins. Melting candles provided gentle light. The disturbing containers rested on tables and stood up against the walls. All were closed.
Kendra could still feel Seth's hand in hers.
But he was gone.
Or invisible?
She reached for him with her free hand. She couldn't feel him, not his body, not his arm. But she could still feel his hand in hers. Kendra squeezed tightly. He squeezed back.
"Seth?" Kendra asked quietly, not daring to yell. "Can you hear me?"
There came no reply.
But his hand remained in hers. That was something.
What had happened? Was this a dream? It looked and felt very real. She felt extra alert rather than asleep.
But how did she get here?
What if the coffins started to open? Kendra wasn't sure if she could handle it.
The room had no windows or doors, unless perhaps they were hidden behind coffins. The walls and furniture were clean, but the coffins looked old, and the air smelled vaguely of perfume. Something about the scent made her suspect it was barely masking unpleasant odors.
The coffins remained shut.
"Hello?" Kendra asked. "Is anyone here?"
There came no answer.
What was she supposed to do?
Her eyes were drawn to the nearest coffin resting on a table. Dare she look inside? What if it contained a monster? What if she started a chain reaction, and zombies attacked from every side?
She glanced at an empty corner of the room. Maybe she should go sit down. Did she have to peek inside a coffin? Was that necessary? But she needed to find the scepter. And Seth. And Calvin. Would sitting still do any good? Probably not. She had chosen to walk the Path of Dreams. This was probably all part of it.
Kendra approached the nearest coffin and rested her free hand on the lid. She surveyed the room. How many coffins in total? Fifty? Maybe sixty. Lots of them stood upright against the walls, like sarcopha
gi. Would bodies tumble out if she opened those?
At least this coffin was lying flat. She wanted to lift the lid but couldn't quite bring herself to do it. What if there was a skeleton inside? Or a putrid corpse? Or a vampire? She supposed that if the coffins were full of enemies, they would attack sooner or later. She might as well find out.
Squeezing Seth's hand tighter with one hand, Kendra pushed up the lid all the way, then gasped and stepped back, tears filling her eyes.
It wasn't fair.
Inside the coffin rested her Grandpa Larsen, eyes closed, looking just as he had when she had attended his funeral, down to the clothes and the hairstyle. At the time Kendra had not known she was viewing a duplicate body created by a stingbulb. The sight brought an unwelcome wave of emotion.
Kendra closed the lid.
She stood motionless for a moment, trying to recover from the sight. Squeezing Seth's unseen hand, she took a steadying breath.
Now she knew this was at least partially a dream. She had left Grandpa Larsen back at Fablehaven, safe and sound. Right? That could not really be him in the coffin.
But it had looked exactly like him.
Kendra approached another coffin, lifted the lid, and found Grandma Larsen inside. It was less surprising this time, but not much less disturbing.
What was the point of this place? To torture her?
Where was Seth right now? She assumed he could feel her hand. Was he experiencing his own twisted nightmare?
She went to the next coffin, lifted the lid, and stared at the corpse of Grandpa Sorenson. She had never seen him dead before, but this was exactly how he would look. She told herself he was safe at Blackwell Keep. He was fine. But the sight was still horrible.
Kendra poked his side. She didn't like the feel. Too rigid. Unnatural. She wasn't sure how a dead body was supposed to feel. She had never poked one before.
The next coffin held Grandma Sorenson. She knew by now to expect dead people she loved, but there was no way to really get used to it.
The next lid she opened revealed Seth. Her stomach clenched. He looked so authentic. And dead. But she was still holding his invisible, disembodied hand, so she trusted that he was alive.
Lifting another lid revealed Coulter Dixon, their old friend whom Graulas the demon had killed. This created a different horror inside Kendra because he was actually dead.
Clenching her teeth, Kendra closed the lid and began to speed through coffins. She opened each one, glanced at the person, then moved on. She tried not to feel shock. She tried to pretend she was at a wax museum looking at fakes. Because it was fake. It had to be! But it looked perfectly real. And she felt completely awake.
Mom. Dad. Warren. Tanu. Lena. Patton.
No matter what she told herself, each new corpse made an impact. She considered stopping, but what if one of the coffins held the scepter? She had to make sure.
She had finished the coffins on the tables. The majority of the grim containers stood upright. Kendra decided to systematically make her way around the room.
The first upright coffin she carefully opened held Vanessa. Her body did not tumble forward. She looked just as dead as everyone else, except she stood with no problem. Maybe they used hidden straps?
Kendra made her way along the wall. Dale. Trask. Agad. Maddox. Her friend Alyssa from school. Her friend Brittany. Mara from Lost Mesa. Berrigan from Obsidian Waste.
After closing each upright coffin, Kendra peeked around the back to make sure it wasn't covering a door or window. So far all she had seen was more wall.
As Kendra progressed, the corpses remained familiar, but they were people she knew less well. Former teachers. Acquaintances. People she had met while adventuring. She tried to brace herself to find Bracken, but he kept not appearing.
When Kendra came to a full-length mirror between two upright coffins, she was startled by her reflection. It was definitely her, but she looked older, more adult. She was taller and somewhat curvier, with more adult features. She looked gorgeous.
Glancing down at herself, Kendra saw that her body didn't match the maturity of the reflection. Not even the clothes were right.
Kendra contemplated the coffins. Was this supposed to represent her future? Was she going to outlive everybody?
A sudden thought jolted her. She had considered becoming an Eternal. The enchantment given to mortals would grant her long life, and, in return, the new demon prison would not be able to be unlocked while she and the other Eternals remained alive.
Chills tingled down her back and spread across her shoulders. Was this room demonstrating her fate if she became an Eternal? To watch her loved ones die? Or were they all going to die before her for other reasons?
Kendra shook her head. She was giving this horrible place too much credibility. It was just scary nonsense. None of this meant anything.
Leaving the mirror behind, Kendra opened more coffins and discovered more dead acquaintances. Soon she was down to the last unexplored side of the room. As she worked her way along the row, Kendra noticed her feet squishing in mud.
She paused.
Hadn't it been a wooden floor, similar to the walls?
She felt sure it had been.
But now the entire floor was covered in dark brown mud.
Stepping forward to the next coffin, Kendra sank beyond her ankles. By the next coffin the mud was at her shins.
Five left.
The nearest coffin contained Aunt Zola, who had dropped off Knox and Tess before going on vacation with Kendra's parents.
Four left.
Kendra slogged to the next coffin, the mud feeling softer as she sank deeper, almost to her knees. She opened the lid to reveal Uncle Pete, Zola's husband.
Three left.
Every step was a chore as the mud overtopped her knees. Kendra pulled open the next coffin to reveal Knox.
Two left.
Kendra plunged deeper with each step, pushing forward through the increasingly soupy mud. When she reached the second-to-last coffin, Kendra had sunk to her waist, making the coffin seem much taller. She continued to slowly sink, as if standing in quicksand. She pulled open the coffin to view Tess, her young features pale in death. Tess was the youngest corpse Kendra had seen, and even after being somewhat numbed by viewing so many familiar cadavers in rapid succession, the sight of her dead little cousin stabbed Kendra with new pain. Tess was supposed to be running around the yard chasing fairies. What sicko had created this horrible place?
One left.
After closing the coffin, Kendra waded forward. She sank quickly to her shoulders, and her movements felt more like treading water than wading. Her feet no longer encountered any firmness beneath them, so she kicked instead of stepped, and stroked with her arms. It was like swimming in glue. Kendra made sure to keep hold of the invisible hand, but she was beginning to really flounder. She could barely keep her head above the mud.
With a desperate lunge, Kendra grabbed the bottom of the final upright coffin. For a moment she clung to it, catching her breath. Then she pulled it open to reveal . . . nothing. No body. No shape to the inside of the container. Just darkness.
Kendra was no longer used to the impenetrable blackness she was seeing. Nothing was completely dark to her anymore unless she closed her eyes.
One thing was certain. She needed to get out of this mud before she drowned. Despite the mushy surroundings, none of the coffins or other furniture in the room were sinking at all. It seemed the mud specifically wanted her.
Kendra boosted herself up into the empty coffin, her body slurping out of the muck. Reaching into the darkness, Kendra felt no back to the coffin. Was this what she had been looking for? Some kind of secret passage? A way out? Why was it so perfectly dark? She could still see nothing.
Rising, still clinging to Seth's invisible hand, Kend
ra stepped into the blackness. She could not feel the ground beneath her feet, but she wasn't falling, just sort of floating along. It was so dark she felt blind. From behind she seemed to hear the voices of her friends and family calling to her.
But that didn't seem very likely. Not in this place. She had just seen them.
And they were all dead.